Methods Of Mayhem - Methods Of Mayhem

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Expectations were not high for a rap/rock project from Tommy Lee, the former Motley Crue drummer in such low esteem since he was convicted of beating his wife, Pamela Anderson Lee.

Tommy Lee's biggest exposure in recent years came in the bootlegged sex video of him and his aforementioned former and current wife. But as we learn in the first video from his Methods of Mayhem project, he was not exactly upset at the release of the explicit footage, he's just mad he never got paid for it.

Indeed, the video for ``Get Naked'' is his own stab at an authorized video, with Pammy jumping under the sheets by the end. By then, he has been playing around with a sock in his bed, tuning in to porn, and witnessing the most extravagent guest appearance yet from Lil' Kim.

Yet there's something about the single and a lot of the rest of the album that's pretty catchy.

The years of blasting the metal candy of the Crue has given him an ear for crunchy, contagious riffs. With a lot of help from rappers and producers, there is a contemporary scratching sound. And guests that include Snoop Dogg, U-God from the Wu-Tang Clan and Lil' Kim give it a sheen of hip-hop authenticity that is more important in the final analysis than the presence of Kid Rock and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit (who also show up).

Any jerk can shout rhymes -- indeed the rock charts are full of them. But Tommy Lee betters the wan competition by having lived a life full of mayhem, over-the-edge behavior, tangles with police and press. Having loved and lost and loved again, the guy's done about 12 times as much living as, say, Durst, and has a lot to sound off about.

Unlike most rap-rock -- and just about the entire Crue catalog -- Methods of Mayhem, surprisingly has a glint of authenticity.